The protests in New York should set the alarms sounding over on the right.
It's like the moment in Madison where the police supported the marchers and the right wing freaked out because the public was no longer following their script.
OccupyWallStreet seems to be accomplishing what the Democrats have needed to do for several years - tap into the spirit that animates the Tea Party without resorting to a phony grassroots movement driven by propaganda.
OccupyWallStreet threatens the narrative of the Tea Party as a real "grass roots" politicial movement.
But most of all, it is without the robocalls offering everyone within 500 miles a ride on the FreedomWorks bus and a box lunch. Oh and without wall to wall free publicity from Fox news.
This is real grass roots action instead of astroturf. This isn't backlash against the Tea Party, this is backlash against the puppetmasters who created the Tea Party. They aren't going to win over the retirees with their Gadsen flags, but they are going to show how small the Tea Party really is.
700 people arrested ? Wow that's more people than have attended all Tea Party events in the last year.
Compare these protests to the Tea Partiers. The Tea Partiers get herded off the Freedom Works charter bus, hold a prayer in the public square to protest that prayer has supposedly been taken out of the public square, use the public parks to protest the existence of public parks, do the cakewalk for Fox News, listlessly wave the Gadsen flag, get their Freedom Works box lunch, and go home to be in bed by 9:00. It's as choreographed and empty as a 5th grade class play.
Here is distinction that needs to be made:
The Tea Party is supposedly "patriots," but the moment young people or liberals start expressing the same sentiments, conservatives leap to attack their neighbors as "the enemy within."
The conservative grass roots response is to urge a ruthless crackdown and to fantasize about various forms of violence. You don't see the OccupyWallStreet people carrying signs like "We came unarmed this time." They are not wallowing in violent fantasies about an inevitable apocalyptic purge of the "traitors" and undesirables. Go check the comments on any other site, and if you were unconvinced of the neofascist leanings of the Tea party, this will remove any doubts.